


when all the candles go out

by yahootoldyou



Series: obikin week '17 [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Birthdays, M/M, Regret, obikin week '17
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-17
Updated: 2017-07-17
Packaged: 2018-12-03 13:52:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11533587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yahootoldyou/pseuds/yahootoldyou
Summary: obi-wan always celebrated anakin's birthdays with him...until he couldn't.





	when all the candles go out

_The days are long in a galaxy without you, My Love._

_They are cold and windy no matter if I am in the desert of Tatooine or of Hoth._

_My heart burns with the loss of you, My Love…_

 

 

Obi-Wan puts down the pen and looks around the small homestead. The walls are bare, those regularly fitting of a Jedi. 

But he is a Jedi no longer. 

And regret is tricky because the thing he regrets most of all is Mustafar.

What does he regret?

The loss of Anakin?

The loss of his fellow Jedi?

_The loss of his soul and himself?_

 

 

Being a Jedi was everything to him once upon a time. It pointed him in a specific direction and told him to _run_ , to leave and fight the great dark evil on the horizon. 

He had Anakin at his side then. 

And when the great dark evil brought the battle to him, brought Anakin down upon him like a vulture, like some creature from the pits of hell, Obi-Wan wanted to die. 

He wanted the evil to scoop him up and toss him off the edge of eternity, never to be seen or heard of again. 

 

 

Tonight is _his_ birthday. It’s not something that he ever celebrated for himself, but Anakin’s mother did for him so Obi-Wan had been pulled down the birthday rabbit hole. 

He baked a cake every year for Anakin, watched a corny old holoflic and spent time with him. 

This year…

_Every year_ for the past ten…

He spends it _alone._

There’s a cake on the table, made from ingredients that are far too expensive on Tatooine to spend his remaining credits on, but here he is. 

It’s Anakin’s birthday, Anakin is off destroying the known universe, and Obi-Wan is sitting in his homestead on Tatooine, eating a cake for a man who hates him now. 

Maybe never loved him at all. 

 

 

The com in his hand, the one from the war, is old and outdated like himself. 

He has had too much Corellian whiskey, another thing he shouldn’t waste credits on, and is once again sitting at the table eating cake by himself because a Jedi doesn’t believe in wasting anything. 

Especially _time._

But he finds he does a lot of that these days on Tatooine where the only companions he has are banthas and jawas. 

The com is heavy and Obi-Wan has looked at it every year on this day since Anakin left him alone in this cruel galaxy. 

 

 

He doesn’t remember dialing the com frequency that has gone unused for almost a decade, but the com is ringing. 

He waits for the tone that will alert him he is alone in his misery. 

The machine crackles. 

_“Who is this? How did you get this frequency?”_ A voice says and Obi-Wan nearly falls off his chair, his mouth hanging in shock and horror. He doesn’t recognize the voice, but he can’t answer either way, he is stuck to his chair. 

_“This is a restricted frequency, who is calling?”_ The voice, deep as the sea on Naboo and dark as the midnights on Lothal says again and Obi-Wan finally finds he can respond. 

“Sorry Sir, it seems I have dialed the wrong frequency,” he apologizes, suddenly very thankful that war coms don’t allow people to trace your location unless you allow it. 

_“Kenobi-?“_ Obi-Wan slams on the end button, suddenly too aware of who it was he called. 

 

 

He walks outside, climbs up on a nearby Bantha and allows it to carry him across the desert in the night until he comes across a small homestead not so different from his own.

There is a familiar light coming from inside and he allows himself to sit on his Bantha nearby. Allows himself to sober up.

Allows himself to hopefully forget the voice of Darth Vader by morning light. 

 

 

And across the galaxy, Darth Vader slams a comlink down, his pod suddenly feeling all the more constricting. 

_He hadn’t heard that voice since-_

Well, it is a life far in the past and he doesn’t dwell on it. 

And he certainly doesn’t dwell on memories of bad holoflics and cake with a rosy-cheeked friend who loved him once upon a time. 

_Who needs love anyway?_

**Author's Note:**

> well, here is day 1! I didn't know obikin week was a thing until today, but I really want to participate, so enjoy!!


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